Keck's Exclusives: Natalie Zea to Return for The Following's Second Season

Thursday

Jul 11, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 11, 2013 at 10:21 AM

Seems as though The Following's Claire Matthews (Natalie Zea) will survive the vicious knife attack that occurred in the season finale. The in-demand actress has inked a deal to return to the Fox thriller for Season 2. Confirming her eleventh ...

TV Guide

Seems as though The Following's Claire Matthews (Natalie Zea) will survive the vicious knife attack that occurred in the season finale. The in-demand actress has inked a deal to return to the Fox thriller for Season 2. Confirming her eleventh hour contract renewal, Zea says the deal nearly didn't happen. "My concern, and [series creator] Kevin Williamson's concern, was always, is there more story to tell with Claire? And we both discovered that maybe there wasn't," Zea says.

As a result, the character was slated to be killed off. But according to sources, that decision did not sit well with Fox execs, who feared The Following would lose followers with its leading lady cut from the cast.

Hoping to maintain some of the cliffhanger's mystery, Zea won't say just how long her return will last - meaning it could be a dramatic death scene or the start of an exciting new story arc. Were it to be the latter scenario, Zea feels strongly that Claire would need to undergo a transformation from damsel in distress. "I feel like what would need to happen would be a change to her DNA," says Zea, who joins the cast of CBS's Under the Dome next month. "In other words, she might have to break bad a little bit. Although I don't know if anyone besides me would want that."